Pride-and-Prejudice

is very improbable they should meet at all, unless he really comes to see her.”
“And that is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend,
and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in, such a part of
London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps
have heard of such a place as Gracechurch Street, ak but he would hardly think
a month’s ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once to
enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him.”
“So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane
correspond with his sister? She will not be able to help calling.”
“She will drop the acquaintance entirely.”
But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this point,
as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley’s being withheld from
seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which convinced her, on
examination, that she did not consider it entirely hopeless. It was possible,
and sometimes she thought it probable, that his affection might be reanimated,
and the influence of his friends successfully combated by the more natural
influence of Jane’s attractions.
Miss Bennet accepted her aunt’s invitation with pleasure; and the Bingleys
were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time than as she hoped, by
Caroline’s not living in the same house with her brother, she might
occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of seeing him.
The Gardiners staid a week at Longbourn; and what with the Philipses, the
Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its engagement. Mrs.
Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother and
sister, that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the
engagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of it, of
which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasions Mrs.
Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth’s warm commendation of him,
narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them, from what she saw, to
be very seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough to
make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject
before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of
encouraging such an attachment.
To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure,
unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before
her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of
Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintance in